Ponder Anew
As I rocked my infant daughter late last night, I started humming a gospel song I remember from childhood. It’s funny to me that as far as I wander from my Southern Baptist upbringing, these are often the songs my heart recalls in life’s tender moments. As much work as I’ve put in over the years to perfect my generic hymn vernacular, these hymns are my mother tongue, a language I’ll surely never lose.
Sadly, most of the Baptist churches I’m familiar with seem to have forgotten that Baptists have been a hymn-singing people for generations. Even in the Baptist megachurch where I grew up, to sing a hymn became merely a patronizing gesture to an older generation. Oh sure, a lot of Baptists may pump out a cover of some commercial artist’s modernized hymn recording. And others may harbor faint memories of hymns shared by their parents of grandparents. But the vast majority of Baptists these days seem content to parrot whatever sort of quasi-charismatic studio-engineered dreck Nashville is so giddily selling them.
I know this doesn’t describe all Baptists. There remains a vocal minority of vibrant hymn-singing Baptist churches in every city of any considerable size. And I imagine there are still a number of congregations dotting the towns and countryside in between clinging to their gospel song tradition. But these seem to be growing fewer as the chokehold of the worship machine on Christian worship grows tauter.
The hymns and gospel songs that do remain somewhere in the collective Baptist songbook are generally those shared in common with most Christian denominations. Standards like “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” may still be known almost everywhere. The best of the gospel hymn tradition, like “Blessed Assurance” and “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” probably retain some recognition, as well.
But my fear is that most of the hymns given by the best Baptist hymnwriters or adopted primarily by Baptists everywhere will be completely lost before long. Though some of them may appear in the most recent Baptist hymnals, the 2008 Baptist Hymnal and the 2010 Celebrating Grace Hymnal, the fact is that most Baptist congregations have forsaken hymnal use altogether. And that’s a shame. I may have left the Baptist fold, but those hymns nurtured and formed my faith from birth. To my Baptist friends everywhere: to reject your centuries-long hymn-singing tradition in favor of the currently marketable is a rejection of your own heritage and faith identity.
With that in mind, I’ve put together a list of hymns Baptist would do well to remember through the generations. I’m, of course, no hymnologist. My list isn’t exhaustive or authoritative, though perhaps representative. At the very least, it’s a place to start, and no doubt would restore a congregation malnourished by a steady diet of Hillsong et al.
With a couple exceptions, this list ignores hymns that remain noticeably prominent in Baptist life, or have been securely adopted into the ranks of traditional Christian hymnody. That’s why there’s no Charles Wesley or Isaac Watts on this list. These are hymns that will likely be forgotten should Baptists continue moving toward a wholesale rejection of hymnody.
And don’t worry, friends. “God of Earth and Outer Space” doesn’t appear on this list.
The numbers in parentheses are hymn numbers from the 1975 Baptist Hymnal unless otherwise noted.
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